Proof of Ohio Election Fraud Exposed

Among activists
and investigators looking into allegations of vote fraud in
the 2004 Presidential election, the company always mentioned
was Diebold and its suspicious electronic touch-screen
voting machines. It is Diebold that has multiple avowed
Republicans on its Board of Directors. It was Diebold that
gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush’s election
campaign. It was Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell who vowed to
deliver Ohio’s electoral votes to Bush.

As it turns out,
everyone was looking the wrong way. The company that
requires immediate and penetrating scrutiny is Triad
Systems.

Triad is owned by a man named Tod Rapp, who has
also donated money to both the Republican Party and the
election campaign of George W. Bush. Triad manufactures
punch-card voting systems, and also wrote the computer
program that tallied the punch-card votes cast in 41 Ohio
counties last November. This Triad company graphic displays
the counties where their machines are used:

Given the
ubiquity of the Triad voting systems in Ohio, the
allegations that have been leveled against this company
strike to the heart of the assumed result of the 2004
election.

Earlier this week, the allegations against
triad were first raised by Green Party candidate David Cobb,
who testified at a hearing held in Columbus, Ohio by Rep.
John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee. In his testimony, Cobb stated:

Mr. Chairman, though our time is
limited, I must bring to the committee's attention the most
recent and perhaps most troubling incident that was related
to my campaign on Sunday, December 12, about a shocking
event that occurred last Friday, December 10.

A
representative from Triad Systems came into a county board
of elections office un-announced. He said he was just
stopping by to see if they had any questions about the
up-coming recount. He then headed into the back room where
the Triad supplied Tabulator (a card reader and older PC
with custom software) is kept. He told them there was a
problem and the system had a bad battery and had "lost all
of its data". He then took the computer apart and started
swapping parts in and out of it and another "spare" tower
type PC also in the room. He may have had spare parts in his
coat as one of the BOE people moved it and remarked as to
how very heavy it was. He finally re-assembled everything
and said it was working but to not turn it off.

He then
asked which precinct would be counted for the 3% recount
test, and the one which had been selected as it had the
right number of votes, was relayed to him. He then went back
and did something else to the tabulator computer.

The
Triad Systems representative suggested that since the hand
count had to match the machine count exactly, and since it
would be hard to memorize the several numbers which would be
needed to get the count to come out exactly right, that they
should post this series of numbers on the wall where they
would not be noticed by observers. He suggested making them
look like employee information or something similar. The
people doing the hand count could then just report these
numbers no matter what the actual count of the ballots
revealed. This would then "match" the tabulator report for
this precinct exactly. The numbers were apparently the final
certified counts for the selected precinct.

Triad is
contracted to do much of the elections work in this county
and elsewhere in Ohio. This included programming the
candidates into the tabulator, and coming up with the
rotation of candidates in the various precincts (that is,
the order of which candidate is first changes between
precincts). They also have a technician in the office on
election night to actually run the tabulator itself.

Triad also supplies the network computers on which all of
the voter registration information and processing is kept
for the county.

It was unusual for the computers to be
taken apart. At least one member of the Board of Elections
was told the tabulator was in pieces when he called to check
on the office.

The source of this report believes that
the Triad representative was "making the rounds" of visiting
other counties also before the recount. This person also
stated they would not pass on the suggestion of the "posted"
hidden totals, and would refuse to go along with it if it
were suggested by the others in the office at the time.

The source of this information believes they could lose
their job if they come forward.

The
source of this information is named Sherole Eaton, Hocking
County deputy director of elections. She has since written
and signed an affidavit describing her experience with the
Triad representative, the text of which is here:

AFFIDAVIT December 13, 2004 Sherole Eaton Re:
General Election 2004 - Hocking County, TriAd Dell
Computer about 14 years old - No tower

On Friday,
December 10 2004, Michael from TriAd called in the AM to
inform us that he would be in our office in the PM on the
same day. I asked him why he was visiting us. He said, "to
check out your tabulator, computer, and that the attorneys
will be asking some tricky questions and he wanted to go
over some of the questions they maybe ask." He also added
that there would be no charge for this service.

He
arrived at about 12:30PM. I hung his coat up and it was very
heavy. I made a comment about it being so heavy. He, Lisa
Schwartze and I chatted for a few minutes. He proceeded to
go to the room where our computer and tabulation machine is
kept. I followed him into the room. I had my back to him
when he turned the computer on. He stated that the computer
was not coming up. I did see some commands at the lower left
hand of the screen but no menu. He said that the battery in
the computer was dead and that the stored information was
gone. He said that he could put a patch on it and fix it. My
main concern was - what if this happened when we were ready
to do the recount. He proceeded to take the computer apart
and call his offices to get information to input into our
computer. Our computer is fourteen years old and as far as I
know had always worked in the past. I asked him if the older
computer, that is in the same room. could be used for the
recount. I don't remember exactly what he said but I did
relay to him that the computer was old and a spare. At some
point he asked if he could take the spare computer apart and
I said "yes". He took both computers apart. I don't remember
seeing any tools and he asked Sue Wallace, Clerk, for a
screwdriver. She got it for him. At this point I was
frustrated about the computer not performing and feared that
it wouldn't work for the recount. I called Gerald Robinette,
board chairman, to inform him regarding the computer problem
and asked him if we could have Tri Ad come to our offices to
run the program and tabulator for the recount. Gerald talked
on the phone with Michael and Michael assured Gerald that he
could fix our computer. He worked on the computer until
about 3:00 PM and then asked me which precinct and the
number of the precinct we were going to count. I told him,
Good Hope 1 # 17. He went back into the tabulation room.
Shortly after that he (illegible) stated that the computer
was ready for the recount and told us not to turn the
computer off so it would charge up.

Before Lisa ran the
tests, Michael said to turn the computer off. Lisa said, " I
thought you said we weren't supposed to turn it off." He
said turn it off and right back on and it should come up. It
did come up and Lisa ran the tests. Michael gave us
instructions on how to explain the rotarien, what the tests
mean, etc. No advice on how to handle the attorneys but to
have our Prosecuting Attorney at the recount to answer any
of their legal questions. He said not to turn the computer
off until after the recount.

He advised Lisa and I on how
to post a "cheat sheet" on the wall so that only the board
members and staff would know about it and and what the codes
meant so the count would come out perfect and we wouldn't
have to do a full hand recount of the county. He left about
5:00 PM.

My faith in Tri Ad and the Xenia staff has been
nothing but good. The realization that this company and
staff would do anything to dishonor or disrupt the voting
process is distressing to me and hard to believe. I'm being
completely objective about the above statements and the
reason I'm bringing this forward is to, hopefully, rule out
any wrongdoing.

Further buttressing
Eaton’s claim is an addendum to a previous affidavit filed
by Evelyn Roberson who, you may recall, was involved in the
Greene County recount action that was summarily shut down by
Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell. Her addendum reads as
follows:

Addendum to Declaration of
Evelyn Roberson dated December 12, 2004 Re: Incidents of
December 10, 2004

This is to add to the approximately 1
:15 p.m. portion of the visit with the Deputy Director of
Elections Lyn McCoy with respect to the following
comment:

"She said they would have their computer
technician check over their computers on Monday in case they
has been tampered with."

the addition is that Lyn McCoy
also mentioned to me at the same time that her computer
technician was with Triad.

I declare under penalty of
perjury the forgoing is true and correct.

Dated: December
14, 2004

Evelyn
Roberson

Original versions of these
documents should be available later on Wednesday on the
website of Rep. Conyers.

Conyers, upon hearing these
allegations, sent a letter to both the FBI Special Agent in
Charge in Ohio and the Hocking County Prosecutor. The text
of that letter is as follows:

December 15, 2004

As part of the Democratic staff's
investigation into irregularities in the 2004 election and
following up on a lead provided to me by Green Party
Presidential Candidate, David Cobb, I have learned that
Sherole Eaton, a Deputy Director of Board of Elections in
Hocking County, Ohio, has first hand knowledge of
inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering in the
Ohio presidential election in violation of federal and state
law.

I have information that similar actions of this
nature may be occurring in other counties in Ohio. I am
therefore asking that you immediately investigate this
alleged misconduct and that, among other things, you
consider the immediate impoundment of election machinery to
prevent any further tampering.

On December 13, my staff
met with Ms. Eaton who explained to them that last Friday,
December 10, Michael Barbian, Jr., a representative of Triad
GSI unilaterally sought and obtained access to the voting
machinery and records in Hocking County, Ohio, modified the
computer tabulator, learned which precinct was planned to be
the subject of the initial test recount and made further
alterations based on that information, and advised the
election officials how to manipulate the machinery so that
the preliminary hand recount matched the machine count. Ms.
Eaton first relayed this information to Green Party
representatives, and then completed, signed and notarized an
affidavit describing this course of events, a copy of which
is attached.

The Triad official sought access to the
voting machinery based on the apparent pretext that he
wanted to review some "legal questions" the officials might
receive as part of the recount process. At several times
during this visit, Mr. Barbian telephoned into Triad's
offices to obtain programming information relating to the
machinery and the precinct in question. I have subsequently
learned that Triad officials have been, or are in the
process of intervening in several other counties in Ohio -
Greene and Monroe, and perhaps others (see attached).

There are several important considerations you should be
aware of with respect to this matter. First, this course of
conduct would appear to violate several provisions of
federal law, in addition to the constitutional guarantees of
equal protection and due process. 42 U.S.C. §1973 provides
for criminal penalties against any person who, in any
election for federal office, "knowingly and willfully
deprives, defrauds, or attempts to defraud the residents of
a State of a fair and impartially conducted election
process, by . . . the procurement, casting, or tabulation of
ballots that are known by the person to be materially false,
fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in
which the election is held." 42 U.S.C. § 1974 also requires
the retention and preservation, for a period of twenty-two
months from the date of a federal election, of all voting
records and papers and makes it a felony for any person to
"willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter" any
such record. Further, any tampering with ballots and/or
election machinery would violate the constitutional rights
of all citizens to vote and have their votes properly
counted, as guaranteed by the Equal Protection and Due
Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.

Second, the course of conduct would also
appear to violate several provisions of Ohio law. No less
than 4 provisions of the Ohio Revised Code make it a felony
to tamper with or destroy election records or machines.1
Clearly, modifying election equipment in order to make sure
that the hand count matches the machine count would appear
to fall within these proscriptions.

Moreover, bringing in
Triad officials into other Ohio Counties would also appear
to violate Ohio Revised Code § 3505.32 which provides that
during a period of official canvassing, all interaction with
ballots must be "in the presence of all of the members of
the board and any other persons who are entitled to witness
the official canvass," given that last Friday, the Ohio
Secretary of State has issued orders to the effect that
election officials are to treat all election materials as if
they were in a period of canvassing,2 and that "Teams of one
Democrat and one Republican must be present with ballots at
all times of processing."

Third, it is important to
recognize that the companies implicated in the wrongdoing,
Triad and its affiliates, are the leading suppliers of
voting machines involving the counting of paper ballots and
punch cards in the critical states of Ohio and Florida.
Triad is controlled by the Rapp family, and its founder Tod
A. Rapp has been a consistent contributor to Republican
causes.4 A Triad affiliate, Psephos corporation, supplied
the notorious butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County,
Florida, in the 2000 presidential election.

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